26 Responses

I dont believe a word of it Craig – but love Betjeman’s poem.And for yourself – with thanks for all your posts – a joyous festive season and well-being for yourself and all whom you love throughout this coming year.

Good call, Craig. We can do without the arse-clenching sanctimony a la St Garth and I take this opportunity to wish you and all the readers/posters here all the very best for the 'festive season'.Make of it what you will, but allow it to make you (all) a better person.Kia kaha & arohanui.

Craig - I understand you may have the hathos for Witi Ihimaera but why the gratuitous use of his name here?

It looks like your seared mind's eyeballs prevented you from reading Garth George's column in full. Attack his writing or his message by all means, but auto-plagiarism? Plagiarism?

Attribution you suggest is the key, yet he's explicit in stating the bulk of this column is repeated from a Herald editorial he wrote in 1992 - he's come out proudly as the writer of what was presumably an anonymous editorial.

Garth George as if an elderly once-author of pulp fiction sending Christmas presents to his grand-nephews and nieces from the boxes of remaindered books under his bed, with a card saying "Here's one I wrote when I was in my prime, an oldy but a goody. Enjoy!" - bathetic perhaps, but not auto-plagiarism. And if perchance you knew of an earlier source he plagiarised in 1992, then it was repeat plagiarism not auto-plagiarism, and I think you might have told us.

Craig – I understand you may have the hathos for Witi Ihimaera but why the gratuitous use of his name here?

I don't think it's gratuitous at all. George and Ihimaera are both recidivist plagiarists who inexplicably (to me) still have jobs. If APN and the University of Auckland are OK with that, that's their call. (I'm in no position to speculate why Ihimaera's latest novel is published by Vintage rather than Penguin.) But I feel perfect fine about mocking them both in the same breath.

And, yeah, perhaps I've been slightly unfair to George. If you've been in the pundit game long enough, there's a range of subjects and holidays where you're really scratching for anything new to say. An up-front cut and paste from your clippings file is a damn sight less offensive than churnalising another anti-feminist, anti-gay, Green-bashing screed.

But I still say it's possible to be a cranky right-wing gasbag and still follow some basic ethical norms - like properly attributing your quotes and getting basic matters of fact right. Give me a call, New Zealand Herald - I'll do it for a modest fee.

He also appears to be going soft. Who'da thunk that "sound social science research" had any place in the Darthiverse? Must be what comes of having someone who could look and sound more like someone's idea of a NZer handing out gongs.

Perhaps the grannyman with the red-framed eyeglasses will start quoting scripture now, unless Granny H has decided that he's also dead wood.

Reckon you’re right. I’d assumed that Darth associated all forms of social engineering with the dead hand of the Clark/Cullen nanny state, now banished by the potently encouraging presence of John Key. A quick check reveals that it’s only the inept variety that attracts his beady-eyed ire.*

*That picture, FFS. Really, you could poke ’em both out with one finger.

In other news, an arrest has finally been made in the Turangi child molestation case. Already, as Russell mentioned on RNZ earlier today, Louise Upston and Tau Henare have opened themselves up to contempt of court charges with their Tweets.

The wider issue I fear happening is if acts of moral indefensibility get responded to with equal and opposite moral indefensibility.

Already, as Russell mentioned on RNZ earlier today, Louise Upston and Tau Henare have opened themselves up to contempt of court charges with their Tweets.

Um, yes... and I've been having a rather *cough* interesting exchange with Henare on Twitter. You'd think a list MP who dropped from 26 to 40 would be taking the hint and start working towards a less marginal position next time around.

>Last Herald column of career>Closes on the most vexing problem facing New Zealand>Suddenly it’s unemployment and inequality, not immorality and abortion and the gays as it’s apparently been for the last fifteen years

I expected a suitable capstone to a decade of trolling every reasonable person in New Zealand and I did not leave disappointed.

I wish. It's been extremely busy and haven't had much time to contribute although I never stopped lurking. Hopefully in the next year I'll have enough braintime spare to not only post more but actually put thought into what I write (rather than drive-by snarkings against easy targets like Garth).

Actually, Darth was never a neoliberal and has at various times railed against inequality and deprivation. It’s just a shame that most of the time he was blathering about homosexuals and stuff.

Precisely, which was what made his run in print so frustrating - occasional glimpses of what we actually needed to read more about.

I obviously jest in referring to it as an intentional troll, but oddly I'd almost rather believe it was that, rather than a seasoned journo managing to mostly waste a decade and a half of column space in a national paper for some mundane reason: maybe because moral panic was easier to write about to a weekly deadline, or because it drew more eyeballs and angry/supportive letters and emails.